


Melted Frost

by rin0rourke



Series: Outlines and Ideas [4]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brainstorm, General outline, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-06 22:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13420617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rin0rourke/pseuds/rin0rourke
Summary: After a party in which Bunny and Jack confess their feelings Jack disappears. Leaving Bunny to wonder what it was he did wrong.





	1. Vapor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [proser132](https://archiveofourown.org/users/proser132/gifts).



> A pretty old brainstorm I have been trying to get down, that never did want to be written. So its being retired to outline form.

A few years after Jack became a guardian Jack and Bunny are getting closer, and Jack is stopping by the warren more often, but it's having negative effects. While Jack is hanging out, watching Bunny paint, he faints. Bunny panics, sees Jack flushed and sweating, and rushes him to the nearest ice covered mountaintop.   


Realizing the warren is too hot for Jack Bunny bans him from it, with much refusal and arguing from Jack. "I like it there, I promise I won't frost anything!" But it's too hot for him and Bunny is immovable. The flowers will recover, Jack may not.

But Bunny promises to visit Jack, to make up for it   


He makes sure to stop by Jack's lake as often as he can, because Jack has abandonment issues, so at least once every few days. As Easter picks up and the weather warms he sees target localized spring weather when he visits,not unusual, but recently a problem since he wants Jack to stay cool.  


Jack reassures him it's fine but Bunny worries.

The problem is, and Jack is not ever going to mention it, but its not the weather, Jack has survived heat waves and deserts. Its Bunny. Every time Jack is near him he feels like he's melting. But Jack is certain if he says so Bunny won't ever get close to him again. And Jack would rather deal with the hot flashes then lose his friendship with Bunny.

After Easter they agree to start meeting at Norths. Although Jack is a regular at the pole, particularly in the warmer months, Bunny is a welcome if confusing addition. Neither North nor the Yeti know what to do with him being underfoot so often. Or willingly going out into the snow.

They meet once a week, and just hang out. And they're both kind of worried, because they're falling in love, they know they are, but they think the other isn't, and if they pull back now it could ruin their friendship, but they can't get closer because it would never work. Bunny thinks Jack can't handle the warren, Jack knows he can't spends too long around Bunny without passing out. 

They keep getting closer, both telling themselves that its okay, that they'll stop it before it gets too far, but neither do.

Its in Autumn, at a harvest festival that Jack is helping make the PERFECT leaves for, that they kiss. And even though its dizzying and Jack is light headed and overwarm he really doesn't care, he doesn't want to stop. He's in love, and if he just keeps it quiet and keeps his head Bunny will never know.

And Bunny is making plans to make a winter section of the warren, just a little cave that Jack can fill with snow and Ice, and a little house just for Jack, so he's not sleeping in trees and caves outside, and Bunny can use it for cold stratification for seeds, and Jack can help him target shift some fruiting plants outside of spring and summer.

He's making room for Jack in his life, and how can Jack tell him that being near him makes him feel like he's burning up?

So Jack is living in the warren now, with his own little ice cave, and Bunny has a beautiful autumn forest right outside that leads into a food forest before reaching the warren proper and its the nicest gift anyone has ever given him, Jack is so in love, and they work side by side as Jack encourages the food forest through its colder seasons and Bunny brings them back to spring, but Jack is on a timetable in the rest of the warren, closely monitored by Bunny to make sure he doesn't overheat, and it is a little frustrating being hovered over.

He'd like to see the rest of the warren, and he'd be fine in the heat if Bunny didn't mother him, because Bunny is the reason he's overheating.

When spring rolls back around and Aster is getting swamped by his Easter prep Jack convinces him to let the egg golems monitor him, so he can get work done.

And Jack is finally able to just take a walk in the forest alone. Nice quiet "me" time.: But me time in the warren, instead of outside in the rest of the world. With Bunny only a few minutes away.

And its perfect. He could live his life like this.

It happens at a Valentines day party, the two are at Ero's domain with the other spirits, each different Saint Valentine has their own colored cards, each for a different love, Jack chooses Vanentina's sibling love cards for each of the guardians, then pauses at romantic love for Bunny, and goes to Eros to pick up one of his commitment Love cards.

The guardian's bags are overflowing, everyone is walking around, chatting, eating, having a good time. There's a dance floor in all four corners of the temple, playing different music genres, and seating areas for relaxing away from crowds.

Jack has a few cards in his bag, some surprising and eyebrow raising sexual ones, but not nearly as many as the other guardians, and Bunny has had to get a second bag, from a glance Jack sees that most are passionate love, with romantic and friendship love thrown in.

He sits with them, and hands North, Tooth, and Sandy their cards. They each are very happy, tease him over it, but pull out family cards on their own for him.

Bunny looks anxious, and doesn't meet Jack's eyes. His leg is twitching, and so are his ears.

Jack looks in his card holder between the romantic and commitment cards. Does he really want to take that risk? What if Aster wasn't in it for the long term? What if its a passing romance to him, and Jack is just jumping the gun because he's never been dating before?

He takes a deep breath and hands Bunny his card.

Bunny stares at it, his ears straight up, like someone stuck wire frames in them. The other guardians are staring too.

Then Aster pulls a card out from his own folder, the color and style mirroring Jacks.

They sit there, watching each other, holding their commitment cards.

Then they start laughing, and put their heads together.

The others are clapping, cheering for them, and it gets the attention of a few other spirits, but Jack and Aster are still just laughing it off. They really worked themselves up over a valentines day card.

They sit like that, hip to hip, for the rest of the party. People come and go from their booth to chat, and they enjoy watching the dancers,   but Jack starts getting a little dizzy.

Bunny thinks its from the heat of the crowd and offers to bring him back home. Jack agrees, they thank their hosts and head out, the tunnels are cooler for once, the temple had been hotter than either realized.

When they arrive at Jack’s house he just faceplants into the snow

Bunny is looking down at Jack, who is just burrowing himself into the snow, and shakes his head fondly, reminding Jack that he made  an actual bed, but Jack, the overdramatic nerd, just groans in fake pain and insists that the snow has accepted him, they are one. He rolls over and stretches an arm out to Bunny saying "join us. Assimilate"

Bunny chuckles but flops down on top of him. Jack lets out an oomph that is immediately smothered in a kiss.

Jack feels somewhat better with his back in the snow, still off balance but not too hot. And for once he thinks maybe its safe, maybe they've reached their happy medium.

He wraps his legs around Bunny's hips and Bunny pulls back, looking down at him in question. Jack's smile is sly, the crooked curl to his lips that warns Bunny of impending pranks. Jack takes one of Bunny's hands and guides it up under his hoodie, it's hot, like the outer side of a cup of hot chocolate, but it doesn't hurt.

Bunny accepts the invitation, wasting no time pulling Jack's hoodie off of him and touching all that cold skin. He's never pushed for this, knowing Jack's been alone so long, worried Jack might agree just to keep Bunny from leaving, but the encouraging moan as he slides his hands over Jack's skin tells him nothing about this is just to appease him.

The snow is wet and freezing, Aster's thick fur protects him from most of it, and his need blocks out the rest. He and Jack make love for the first time in the soft snow outside Jack's little cottage, and he doesn't even feel the cold.

After lovemaking Bunny scoops Jack up and carries him inside, Jack is too tired even to quip, and just wraps his arms around Bunny's neck. He does say, when Bunny slides into bed next to him, that he is not up for a sequel just yet. Bunny kisses his forehead and tells him to rest. Then curls around him.

Jack snuggles into Bunny's fur, head pillowed on Bunny's arm and nose against his collarbone. He's light headed and groggy, but blames it on the long day and alcohol at the party, plus the really awesome sex. He can't believe they waited so long to do that, it was amazing, and his fears weren't even an issue, he didn't overheat at all.

He falls asleep to the sound of Bunny's pounding heart.

When Bunny wake up Jack isn't there.

He doesn't think anything of it, its still winter, Jack likely went to create or stop a storm, or check for premature ice breakage. He always runs about all hours.

The cottage is small, a room, a visiting area, an eat in kitchen. Everything they need grows fresh from the food forest, between the two of them they can cycle a tree through the seasons in an hour.

Bunny snags some fruit and nuts from the pantry for breakfast and heads out into the field. Easter is fast approaching, and if Jack's out working he better get started too. There is a little sting though, Jack left no note, and didn't wake him to say goodbye.

Jacks clothes are gone, but the snow is still disturbed from when they made love. Bunny takes a moment to look at it. Jack is very particular about renewing his snow. Every time he leaves he makes it all over again. He always said there was something comforting in fresh, undisturbed snow.

He takes comfort in the fact that Jack had picked up his clothes, but hadn't fixed the snow. He thinks of Jack standing there, looking at their marks. Would he smile and blush or go gooey with sentiment? Would he consider going back inside and waking Bunny up to start all over again?

At least he knows that if Jack had regrets then the marks wouldn't be there.

Or, a paranoid thought weedles in, Jack left so early, with no note, and no fresh snow, because something bad had happened. A bad storm, or an avalanche. But if that happened Jack would have woken him to help.

He hopes so at least.

Aster shakes off the anxiety, Jack WOULD have woken him for an emergency, if he had to rush out the door it was likely something minor but time restrictive.

Just as likely Jack just forgot to leave a note. This was, after all, the first night they slept together.

Bunny heads out to check on the googie tulips, he had been gone all yesterday afternoon and some premature eggs may have bloomed. He spent the rest of his day checking the ancient dormant golems that housed the tulips that turned the fields into a boulder strewn obstacle course, and training the vines along the color river into the designs he wanted.

As the day turns to night he starts to worry again, Jack hasn't come back.

It wasn't unusual, when they first started dating they only saw each other once every few days, but now that Jack lived in his winter cabin in the warren they saw each other every day. Only a few months now, but it was enough for Bunny to get used to it, be spoiled by it, having Jack only a walk away.

He checked back in at Jack's home, the snow was still marked, but this time seeing it brought no comfort. The cabin was dark, the bioluminescent plants not yet glowing in the twilight.

He steps inside though, checking, maybe Jack was too tired, maybe he just came home and went to bed. But no one is there, the bed is exactly as Aster left it. Jack likes to sleep in the snow though, even after Bunny made him a house Jack would often curl up in a drift or a tree.

Bunny exits the cabin, circling. There are no tracks but Jack rarely makes any. He walks on top of water when he wants to.

He searches every corner of the winter cave, every lump of snow, every evergreen tree. He ends up back at their imprints.

It's just tossed and compacted snow, no real forms, it looks more like a struggle than lovemaking.

Had Jack seen this, as he collected his clothes, and felt regret?

Had he rushed off in a panic, or in guilt? Had it not been up to his expectation? Or was it that Aster's form, his species, was too much for him? Jack had reassured Bunny countless times that he didn't care about the fur, that he loved Bunny, that the shape of him hadn't mattered. Perhaps that had been the case when Aster was a friend, even when they were dating. But had it changed now that they had been intimate?

He puts his paw where the imprint of Jacks head was, and wishes he had pressed the issue harder, had asked questions instead of being afraid of the answer.

He stands, guilt and worry and hurt eating at his stomach. Then he spots, in the snow, a strangely uniform shape. There are no straight lines in Jack's snow. No hard edges of ice. He reaches down and picks it up, the line is a flat rectangle, a card.

A frost covered valentine.

He brushed the frost away, so thick it blended perfectly with the snow, revealing the bold color underneath.

The commitment card, the one Bunny had given Jack, who had held it close, not in his bag like the others, but held it all through the party. Like it had been a beloved gift, and not a thick piece of colored paper.

The card Jack had placed in his hoodie pocket.

Jack couldn't have failed to notice it falling out. It was too bright against the snow. And frosted. There was nothing around to cover it, no snowfall, no tree or ledge to drop its burden on it.

Jack had frosted it, had held it, and his emotions, like so many times before, had frosted it.

Bunny gripped the card tight in his paws, hurt and anger clogging his throat, burning his eyes.

Bunny crumbles the card and shoves it in his bandolier. If Jack had felt regret or upset over what they did he should have told Aster himself, not run off like a coward. Did he not realize how Bunny would worry? How he would feel? Or was Jack's own guilt over his realizations more important than hurting Bunny? Did Jack think so little of Bunny that he figured he could fly off and not come home and Bunny would just be fine with it?

Well fuck that. He was going to hunt Jack Frost down and confront him.

He was going to make him say it.

You didn't hand someone a god damn long term promise and walk away like it was a one night stand.

Bunny dashed out to the tunnels, speeding past their autumn woods, their food forest, the egg columns that kept watch for Jack's heat intolerance.

He sped through the egg fields, over the color river, through the vines, and past the columns marking the entrance to the continents. He slid into the North American tunnel, kicking up clumps of soil and moss. No flowers sprouted in his wake, instead thorny weeds grew and spread. He navigated the labyrinthine tunnels with ease, finding the long traveled path to Jack's lake.

He rockets out of his tunnel, chest heaving, muscles screaming, snarling Jack's name.

The streetlights from the road shed a weak sickly yellow light over the winter dormant park, the stars aren't out yet, and the moon is not yet risen. His eyes try to adjust to the cold, silent twilight.

He can feel Jack, when he reaches out he can taste Jack's magic everywhere. But like the warren the snow here is heavily trampled. Jack doesn't renew his snow here as often anymore now that he sleeps in the warren, but when he visits the lake he gives everything a fresh powder.

The acrid, woodsmoke taste of Jack's magic is always strong here, but he can't find a trail to Jack, not even an old one.

Jack hasn't been there since the humans came out to play in his snow, a day at the least. His scent was too faint for even a few hours.

Bunny looks out over the lake, the jutting granite foreboding shadows looming over the dark ice. Without the moonlight the ice looks like the edge of a deadly pit. Bunny feels like his gut is that pit, bottomless and dark, with his heart dropping forever inside it.

Growling he shakes it off, holding fast to his anger he dives back into a tunnel and runs the length to Jamie's red painted house, popping out to peek into the windows. Jamie is sitting down to dinner with his family, and Jack is nowhere to be found, not his room, not his roof.

He checks in with all the other kids. Jack always goes to them with his emotional upheavals, even if just to distract himself from it, but he is nowhere to be seen. Frustrated, but in no way dissuaded, he charges through his tunnels towards Jack's other favourites. Appalachian trails, deep forests, ancient glaciers, the Ross Shelf of Antarctica, but Jack is not to be found.

Worry starts to weed its way in through the anger. Jack wouldn't intentionally hide from him, if he was upset he would seek comfort from his favourites. If he was staying someplace even Bunny didn't know about then he didn't want to be found.

And if he didn't want to be found then this was worse than Aster figured.

And his anger, his hurt, gives way to heartsickness.

Jack may not love him.

The blow stole his breath, and he stumbled to a stop, bracing himself against the wall of his tunnel.

What if Jack never loved him? only placed himself in this relationship because of his fear of abandonment, of being rejected? What if, all this time, he felt pressured into being with Aster, that if he rejected his advances the Guardians would in turn reject him?

Bunny had been mindful of Jacks self esteem, but had he really taken as much care of the power placed in his hands?

Had he given Jack every opportunity he could? Or had he been too afraid to scratch the surface? Too concerned with destroying his own illusions. And Now they had reached the point of no return.

The very thought made him sick. He collapsed, curling up in his tunnel and keening.

He pulled the valentine out of his bandolier, uncrumpling it to stare at the picture of the simple pink peonies set into a deep magenta card.

Bunny stares at the card, Peonies, with tiny bluebells around their stems. the symbols of the long sustaining marriage, of lasting love, a covenant, a promise.

He pressed his fists to his eyes and wept.

Beside him a cover of lush anemones sprouted, their slowly blooming purple petals unfurling beneath his misery.


	2. Fluid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Truth comes out

 

He stumbles through the doors of the Pole, shuddering from the cold. It was the last place he hadn't looked, his last hope.

If he could comb through the entire world he would.

He had searched every place he was able, gone farther than even his Easter runs had brought him, from the densest populated cities to the most baren of frozen tundra. All the while stopping back at the warren, just to check, just to see. But Jack had not returned.

Sometimes, he rationalized, and it sounded like false hope even to himself, sometimes the most obvious place is the last place.

Jack wouldn't have come to the pole seeking comfort, it was too loud, too active. If he had come, and had not left for home, North would have noticed, and contacted Bunny, if only to drag him back and make him apologize for whatever he had done to upset the sprite.

If Jack was hiding in a room from his feelings, or lack of, then North would know.

He had already been by Tooth's,  Sandy he had spotted in passing, neither had seen Jack and both became concerned of the clear misery on his face.

The two had assured him they would help search, but he worried, worried that Jack would see it as more pressure, more urging for him and Aster to be a couple.

He needed to find Jack on his own. To talk this out. With every passing hour his fears only grew.He knows he can't find Jack alone, but he doesn't want to start a manhunt. He doesn't want to put Jack in a corner.

He thinks of everything he did, building the house, changing the warren, always searching him out, making sure he was okay, that he wasn't lonely, or feeling abandoned.

Everything he had thought of as romantic, had Jack seen as pressuring? Had Jack felt himself more and more in debt with every gesture, until he had seen no way out?

Bunny walked around the crowded workshop in a daze, tired eyes searching for any sign. His pulse lept at every flash of blue, his spirit crumbling at every false hope. A house, a doll, a car , a blanket, all catching his eye and breaking his heart.

Bunny is dragging himself through the levels searching for any sign of Jack as he also looks for North, but his hope is failing him.

He finds North elbow deep in a mechanical loom that crafts the pole's clothing items.

North is understandably surprised to see him so soon after the party, especially with Easter approaching. The heavy fatigue is obvious, and North ushers him to one of the many adjoining break rooms in the work spaces.

Bunny explains what happened. That Jack was gone when he woke up, no note, no explanation, just gone, and the snow wasn't redone. Jack ALWAYS renews his snow on his cottage.

North listens, not interrupting to reassure or question, as Aster tells him about coming home to darkness, about finding the valentine discarded in the snow, and racing around the world searching. North listened through his anxieties about the night before, only interrupting when Bunny started to express his fear that he pressured Jack into this relationship.

North is very serious when he tells Bunny that Jack is not the type to be backed into such a corner easily. He had no problem rejecting Tooth when she had flirted with him, why would Bunny think himself so different? Jack loves them, but he wouldn't compromise his own heart for their friendship. They had enough fights amongst them to understand that by now.

North doesn't know why Jack left without a note, or why he left his valentine, but Jack, like Bunny, is prone to sudden anxieties and self doubt. Bunny is currently letting his cloud his judgement.

He has searched, now with Tooth and Sandy joining, all over the globe for Jack, with no sign of him. The obvious conclusion is that Jack is in trouble, and they must help him.

Bunny feels his quietly breaking heart drop.

North sets off the Aura, calling Sandy and Tooth back to the Pole. For a moment there is a flare of hope when the wind blows open a window and sends a stack of toys to the floor, but Jack is not with it.

The wind twists around Bunny in a dervish and he has to be saved from it by Sandy, who pulls him into an egg shaped sand bubble. The wind and Sandy speak, as Sandy is the only one there that can talk to wind spirits at the moment. Wind tells him that she was playing in the Warren while her frost and Spring slept, but when she came back her frost was gone and Spring was painting eggs. Her frost never leaves without her, but no matter where in the warren she looked he wasn't there.

She searched all the tunnels and the pockets of the warren, it took all day but she couldn't find her frost, and he never called her. When she finally returned home she couldn't find the Springtime anywhere either

And she was very upset, both her boys were missing, and the tunnels were closed, and she couldn't get out.

She looked everywhere, but the warren is so big and she couldn't go as fast as she wanted because of the plants. Frost and Spring would be very sad if the plants were damaged from her passing, and the leaves were worried over Jack as well.

She was trapped until North set off the signal, there's a roof access that opens to view the lights, it wouldn't let anything normal in, but she's been cleared by the wards same as Jack.

She's very happy she found Springtime, but she still can't find her Frost. This brings everyone's anxiety way way up. Its one thing for Jack to leave without the saying anything or refreshing his snow, but Jack would never go anywhere without the Wind.

They didn't even think he could fly far without her. Hover and float, but fly?

Wind curls around Bunny, as if afraid he's going to disappear again, and Bunny feels steadier than he has all day.

It could be that he's shutting down, his worry becoming too much that he stops processing anything else, but under the rising fear his hope flares up.

Jack didn't abandon him.

Somehow, some way, something took Jack from him.

And Bunny was going to get him back.

They head back to the warren. Aster, in spite of his clear exhaustion, is fueled by righteous fury. An entire 28 hours wasted searching for Jack, when he was taken right from his own warren. The one place Jack should have been safe.

They start the search in the cabin, Bunny leaves nothing unturned, for all he knows Jack was taken right out of bed.

As embarrassing as it is he walks the others through that night, the party, arriving home, finally reaching the bed.

They turn the cabin upside down searching for clues. Nothing is left unchecked, but there's no evidence of what might have pulled Jack from bed.

They begin to extend the search outward, Bunny checked everywhere in the warren for Jack, but he hadn't searched for the more subtle signs.

Jack would never have left the warren without the wind. If he was taken it was fast, too fast to call the wind, or by someone he trusted that an attack would be a surprise.

North, who had worked with Aster to set up the magical defenses, began to search the wards for any sign of tampering or entry. Tooth and her fairies began to comb every inch of the warren for any sign of struggle. While Sandy and Bunny searched for the more subtle shift in magic, the change of seasons within the eternal spring. If anything had happened to Jack, even just to be knocked unconscious, the warren would remember. His and Bunny's powers were tied into the fabric of the warren, they had to be in order to perform their micro climate shifts.

Bunny began his search where it all started, the disturbed snow where he and Jack had finally joined.

It wasn't just that he hadn't wanted the others to see it, they knew the two had sex, it was that this was where he found the card, frosted as only Jack could.

And he worried that the card may have been the only clue. The only warning left that someone had taken Jack. And Bunny had misunderstood it.

He searched the snow, desperate for any other sign, reaching out with his magic.

He felt, something. Faint, a quiet humming. Kneeling in the snow he began to dig, it was so low, hard to pinpoint, like finding where a cricket was chirping in the tall grass.

Finally he touched something solid, and pulled it up, the wind swirled to life in response.

It was Jack's staff.

Jack hadn't brought it in with him that night, like his clothes it had been discarded in the snow, left when Aster had carried him inside.

But Jack, more than anything else, wouldn't have left it behind, even to go for a walk. Jack never left his staff. Not anywhere. It was like leaving a prosthetic limb.

Bunny's worry turned to dread.

This was proof, Jack had been taken.

But by who?

Bunny calls the other Guardians back. He's sitting in Jack's cottage, why had he even built it? Neither of them were much for houses, but he wanted that domestic fairytale, that fantasy of building a home. And Jack had loved it, though he was more likely to sleep in the grass than a bed, more often would forage from the trees than use the kitchen, he had so carefully tended to the home Aster had given him. A home neither of them had ever had.

A home someone had invaded

His fellow guardians found him crouched on the floor in the main room, staff across his knees, staring at the curve of the wood.

It should be frosted.

Whenever Jack held it frost coated where his hands touched. The lack of frost on the staff hurt more than the presence of it on the card.

The wind is swirling around him, like a little draft from an open window.

She is tugging on the staff, as if she wants to pull it from him, but every time he opens his palms all she does is float it a little.

Tooth enters first, eager to see if Bunny has news. At the sight of the staff she drops with a heavy thump to the floor, almost like she was plopping down to sit if her chair was right in the doorway. Her hands are at her mouth, her large eyes fixed on the wood floating in his palms

North almost steps on her a moment later as he rushes in, barely managing to to trip in his effort to halt. He catches himself on the doorframe, then grips tighter when he sees as she did.

It was one thing to think Jack was taken, But this proof, undeniable proof, made the threat far too real.

They were helpless against an unseen enemy, with no clues to follow.

North picks Tooth up from the floor. She stands shakily on her tiny feet, no longer used to walking but her wings only manage a half hearted flutter.

Sandy enters last.

He does not stop as the others had, only narrows his eyes and rushes forward, reaching out to Aster. He touches his friend's shoulder first, until Bunny looks at him, pain in his eyes, fragile hope splintering like thin ice. Then he reaches down to touch the staff.

The wind loops around him, and he translates for her.

He cannot speak to the spirit in the staff, none of them had even known one was there, but she loves it as she loves her Frost and he can speak with her. She tells Sandy of TwineTender, Jack's spirit guide as a human and protector when he woke.

Twiner does not know where Jack is, but he knows Jack did not leave the cottage.

When asked where Jack's clothes went if he hadn't left Twiner says they turned to frost, as they always did when Jack removed them for too long.

This confuses the others, thinking something lost in translation between Sandy, the Wind, and TwineTender. But Twiner insists Jack summons his clothes in frost, as he summons all frost illusions.

The stress and strain is wearing on Bunny because he laughs, a harsh sound, and says if he had known that he'd have melted them off Jack last night.

The face Sandy makes at first seems to be for the crude Joke. But he's conversing much more rapidly with the wind, who is agitated. Sandy explains that TwineTender took the joke seriously, saying such a thing would hurt Jack.

Because Jack himself is made of frost

The others are confused, Jack is Frost yes, and other minor spirits have referred to him as it, but it's an American thing. He's a Frost spirit, not actually Frost

But Sandy had already argued and clarified.

TwineTender and Wind both insist that Jack is, himself, a frost figure held together by magic.

North states that Jack can't be frost, Jack doesn't melt, even in summer. This surprises Bunny, who says Jack is very weak against heat, he can barely handle the warren too much.  
  
But the others tell him he's been around much hotter areas with no problem, and Bunny is so confused. Jack is always a bit faint when he's in the warren, its why he has a winter cavern, why he sleeps in the snow and pulls away from their embraces after too long.

The Wind and Twiner though, reveal that it's not the heat that weakens Jack, its magic, seasonal magic.Elemental magic, like his own. It's not the warren, its Bunny, that overheats Jack.

But Jack had never said! Aster panics. Jack never once even complained! Even before they were dating!

But, the Wind says, that's because Jack was afraid. Afraid Bunny would turn away from him, to protect him. And being without Bunny hurt more than Bunny's magic ever could.

Realizing he has been hurting Jack all this time shatters Bunny. His lungs feel like they're collapsing, he can't breath. He drops the staff, which Sandy grabs, and clutches his chest. The wind twines around him, worried.

North and Tooth reach for him, and Bunny is sobbing in their hold.

He understands what happened now, but he can't say it past the pain in his chest.

Jack was gone, and he's the reason why.

Jack was right, Bunny never would have pursued this relationship, not at such a cost. How could he not have known, not have realized Jack was in pain.

How could Jack have let it get this far?

Had he held on too tightly in the night, weakened Jack too much to get away?

He didn't know, never could know.

The reassuring voices of his friends are in his ear, they don't realize yet the depth of his sin.

They try to soothe him with promises that it couldn't have been too painful if Jack still wanted to be near him. Not understanding that Jack was dead. DEAD. As melted as any other frost in the warm arms of spring.


	3. Slush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steps are taken, and stupid mistakes are scaled well and truly back.

  
  


Bunny is breaking down, and the Guardian's are trying to comfort him upon their realizing that Bunny's touch causes Jack pain, not understanding that Jack MELTED. But Aster knows, now, he can't stop knowing.

He gasps in North's shoulder, he killed him. He killed Jack.

It takes a few times, but they hear him, and finally understand themselves,

North denies it, it's not possible, Bunny surely would have noticed if Jack were struggling or in pain. There is something else, some other explanation.

Jack is to powerful to simply melt.

The wind is whipping around them, worried over everyones sudden upset.

When Sandy explains to her why Bunny is sad she soothes him.

Jack is made of frost, but he'll come back. Which gets everyone's attention. She explains that its not the first time Jack's melted.

Jack has been attacked by seasonal and elemental spirits before. He'll come back in Autumn.

And Bunny, it helps, but also upsets him.

Only this, as North argues, is impossible. How does he reform? Thats not possible. It shouldn't be at least

Bunny doesn't understand, there are plenty of myths involving resurrection, especially among seasonal spirits. His mind is still clutching at the "Jack will come back" information rather desperately.

North frowns at him, patting him on the back before standing and pacing, smoothing down his beard with one hand.

Resurrections in myth have many legends and stories around them, but as a wizard North knows one fact that is in all of them. They all reformed near their corpse. They required an anchor, something to hold their magic and project it out. Some spirits possessed their own remains, others became sand or trees or an illusion.

Jack, it seems, projects in his frost images.

But all the legends are dead, their resurrection is only a seasonal return to life, Jack according to the staff and wind, is very difficult to melt, and is not confined to only Winter.

"Jack drowned." Bunnymund says, and the others are shocked to hear it. Jack doesn't like talking about it, he told them all of his memories, and saving his sister, but only Aster knows that Jack went through the ice in her place.

Bunnymund stands, knocking Tooth and Sandy back. They hover near him as he stares down at TwineTender. "Where does he reform?" He asks and before Sandy can translate the Wind kicks up into a durvish, blowing open the door and kicking up a line of snow pointing the way.

Bunnymund secures the staff to his bandolier and sets off after her, leaving the others to follow.

He rushes through the forest, across the grass, the egg fields, the color river, and into his tunnels, down The path he took the first time, straight to Jamie's house.

So close. He had been so close.

He has an idea of exactly which lake Jack drowned in, now little more than a pond fed by snowmelt from the mountains.

He's two leaps out of the tunnel when Sandy grabs him.

"Bunny!" Tooth yells, not far behind. "What are you doing?"

Aster struggles, desperate to reach the lake. He's going to drag Jack out of it, and bring him back safely to the warren, far from his watery grave.

Sandy's cloud approaches, the tendrils holding Bunny becoming more substantial the closer it becomes. North is riding beside him, looking very worried.

North scolds Bunny. Who knows what doing so could do to Jack? If there is anything left of Jack down there but an anchor, bones, fragments, remnants of his corpse.

And though the lake thaws naturally every spring Bunny's magic could have the same effect on the lake as it did Jack himself.

Bunny could kill Jack permanently.

Bunny has stilled his struggles, and Sandy banishes the sand.

They flank him, north and tooth, with Sandy drifting ahead, and walk through the forest to the lake.

North return to the pole to gather supplies to find out exactly what they are dealing with. Bunny refuses to leave, and no one has the heart to make him, so Sandy stays behind to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

Not that he would, not if Jack's life is on the line.

He sits at the edge of the ice, not daring to touch it, holding the staff as the wind swirls loose snow into little dust devils. He thinks about what would happen if there's nothing they can do, if Jack is meant to be just a Frost image and form every Autumn.

He'd wait for Fall.

Of course he'd wait.

He'll go and finish up Easter, then when that's all done he'll sit, every day, by the lake.

He wonders if Jack can hear them, or if hes not even existing right now. He talks, even if Jack doesn't hear him, because there's so much he wants to say that he can't when Jack is there.

All that comes out is I love you.

His thoughts refuse to become words, it's impossible to pin down everything Jack is to him; and for the first time in his millenia of life the words "i love you", words he dreamed he'd one day be able to speak, are not enough.

So he built a house and planted a forest and invited Jack to stay because it was the only way he knew how to convey what he wanted.

That Jack was not only welcome, but part of him, a part he needed, not to be complete but to be more. Spring and Winter becoming all the seasons, their forest producing fruits for Easter because Jack was part of that too, and the winter cottage was not just a safe space for Jack and a home in the warren, but part of the warren now too. The snow melted into a stream that fed the color river, mixing Jack's magic with his own.

He never said what he felt, but he tried to show it, the best way he knew. He wasn't good with words, but he could build and create.

And he wanted the warren to reflect who he was, and what he was. And who and what he is was in love with Jack, wholy, permanently in love. And he didn't know if he could go back to the way he was if he lost Jack. Like the warren he had been changed too much.

He could survive it, but it would undo something in him.

For the first time since he stepped onto this planet it felt like home. Like this was where he belonged and not a job given to him that he never was able to move on from. Not even the guardians had been able to do that.

Somewhere in his mind had always been the thought of retirement. Of leaving Earth for the stars.

Then Jack arrived, and those old expectations finally left. And he doesn't feel resentment that he's the last, that he'll never travel again or create another new planet, he had plans for all the planets in the solar system you know, mars was next, then a few smaller planets he had half formed in the asteroid belt, lots of material to use to form new planets there. A whole new system of inhabitable planets to add to the golden age.

But then Pitch happened, and suddenly there was no need. No One would come to live there.

So he stayed, and slowly this planet evolved its own people, and he had thought to create a new golden age, but he lacked the will to properly shepherd them. He was a creator, not a molder.   
He stayed, and he resented, and then the guardians happened and he was happy for a while. But Jack, Jack made him do more than just accept Earth as him hope.

Jack made him want it.

So Jack has to come back in Autumn. He has to.

And Aster will do everything he can to correct the harm he caused. Because he'd rather have Jack alive and never touch him than hold him for a moment and lose him forever.

~*~

So Jack is under the Lake, Bunny is being babysat by Sandy while the others head to the pole for magical bullshit to find out what the fuck Jack is even doing in the lake and Bunny is sitting by the shore talking to the ice feeling like the biggest bag of dicks because he never noticed his powers were KILLING Jack

North opens a portal and steps out on the ice with a sheaf of papers hurriedly copied from several books and a box full of supplies. Tooth is carting a bag of ice carving tools.

Bunny stands up, but doesn't dare step out onto the ice. Afraid. So very afraid.

North's first order of business is to make sure Jack's spirit or whatever is even there, he casts a casic locating spell, with tweaks. Something like this wouldn't work without Jack's blood, something they never bothered to get before, but North isn't trying to find a LIVING Jack. He's searching for a "presence" much as he used to find haunted or cursed items. He's searching for Jack's anchor.

Good news and bad news. The spell reveals that Jack's magic is indeed down below the ice, bad news is Jack's magic is below the ice.

North was kind of hoping it would say Jack was whole and not made of frost and had sneezed and discovered the ability to teleport, naked, to the south pole. But "not completely dead" was a good second

North admits that he wasn't sure it would even work, he had cobbled it together from several different spells for other things. Jack doesn't exactly fit into a standard category.

The real special snowflake

He explains that now that they know Jack's magic is down there North will cut a hole in the ice to send a probe down to get a look at the anchor. It could just be an old shoe buckle for all they know.

When Bunny points out that Jack drowned by Ice Skating North shrugs and says "skate blades" Then he hrumphs and says they waste time with nonsense when they could just look and find out for themselves.

North says someone needs to maintain the location spell, to make sure his carving the ice doesn't damage Jack's magic, and to help locate his anchor. North wants to use as little magic as possible to avoid disrupting whatever is tying Jack to the lake, so he'll be using a plain underwater camera with lights.

Bunny can do that. He can hold the spell from the shore.

North passes him the miguivered tracker, which is basically a carved wooden toy helicopter with four blades the size of his boomerangs lit at the ends with tiny birthday candles and a gps in the middle. Its ridiculous and amazing at the same time. The gps is blipping where they are, and the blades are rotating on their own.

There are runes written all over it in hastily scrawled carpenter crayon, and Bunnymund wonders if North pulled it right out of a yeti's hands at he was carving it.

"Jack" he whispers, afraid to breathe too deeply, afraid he'll blow out the candles "Jack are you there? Can you hear me?"

The flames flare up, warm and bright, and the blades rotate opposite directions of eachother. Bunnymund sobs out a laugh, hope flaring inside him like one of those tiny candles.

The flames stay strong as North cuts his hole, wide enough for someone to dive in. They don't gutter or even dim, the wind has also stilled.

North carefully lowers the tiny drone into the water. Bunnymund notices its a remote controlled toy mermaid with a small camera adhered to her outstretched hands.

He imagines what Jack would say if he knew he was being rescued by a color changing barbie mermaid.

North had little time and few supplies.

North watches the screen of a smartphone as he controls her, she must have some kind of light or tracking on her for North to scan the dark frozen lake for, as he said, shoe buckles.

"I wish you were here Frostbite" Bunnymund says, "you'd get such a kick out of this." But Jack is down there, hopefully down there, hopefully able to be reformed without waiting six months.

The blades of the helicopter start drifting, back and forth back and forth, almost fast enough to blow the candles out though its still very slow. The flames make him anxious, make them seem to be going faster than they are. Tiny fires are vulnerable. Like his hope. Like his only tie to Jack, only hint that Jack is alive.

Then they spin once, full circle, and before Bunny can grab the blades to stop them they've passed each other and smacked the candles off the lower blade. They fall to the snow, fire gone.

Tooth gasps, and he turns, apology on his tongue, anxiety in his heart, but she's not gasping at his blunder. She's staring over North's shoulder at the phone.

North looks up, eyes moist, and Bunnymund can hear the words that will rip his heart out in the way North licks his lips to speak.

Then North smiles, and he says its okay. Its okay Bunny, come onto the ice. Its all going to be okay.

Bunny takes a shaky step, then another, the propellers of the toy still spinning although the candles are out. Sandy is behind him, watchful of him slipping.

North holds the phone out for him and he trades the toy for it, the little helicopter spinning so fast it could almost take off.

There, foggy from water and shadowed and cast in poor white glow in Jack, alive and whole at the bottom of the lake.

He looks odd, thinner than he had been, and his hair is longer than his body, his clothes, all natural for his time period, had decomposed away. But Jack hadn't.

He looked like he was sleeping, like a sick person in a coma, or a drowning victim still floating under the water.

North asks Sandy if he could bring Jack up? Sandy mimed pushing his sleeves up, then poured  his sands into the water.

It cocooned around Jack like a bubble Bunny didn't know how to control the mermaid but he didn't want to lose sight of Jack. He only handed it back when Sandy had pulled him out of sight. Then he was at the edge, peering into the water, waiting.

Sandy had his sand like a fishing rod in his hands, reeling it in, and he was again struck by how much Jack would love this if he had seen.

He would tell Jack, and Jack would complain that he had missed it.

Then he saw it, the top of the sand bubble, like a gold balloon floating out of the hole. He was reaching for it as soon as it was up, and noone was going to stop him.

Not if they wanted to keep their limbs

Sandy pulled his sand back, revealing a skeletal Jack Frost. There was nothing to him, absolutely nothing. If it weren't for the waxy skin Bunnymund would have thought Jack a halloween decoration.

But still he smoothed back Jacks hair and called to him. Called his name a hundred times, a thousand, called his name until it lost its meaning, blurring together in those three sounds. Jackjackjackjakjakjakjak

No breath, no heartbeat, and no candle flame. Even the blades of the helicopter had stilled. But the wind had slithered like a snake from his shoulders to Jack's body and wrapped him in her currents.

He took hope in that.

North clapped him on the shoulder, and he looked up at his friend who was crying, but smiling.  "Is good thing" he said. "Jack has a body. It means he's not dead just, hibernating. In a way."

Then he helped Bunny to stand, Sandy coils Jack's hair around a sand spindle, and Bunny can't help it, he laughs. He laughs and then he cries and he holds Jack to him, shaking.

He's afraid he's hurting Jack again, his magic, but though he promised he would hold back and love from a distance he can't bring himself to pass Jack off to someone else. Jack is so, so tiny. Its like carrying dry kindling. He steps through Norths portal, he hates portals, but he wont risk his tunnels. Jack needs help, magical help, and that's North.

They set Jack up in a room, and North insists to him as Jack is examined that he is fine, that this is the Best outcome of all the myths of death and rebirth. Jack's frost form had been, in a way, a type of astral projection. He had likely escaped the ice the only way he knew how, and never realized his body wasn't, well, real. The loss of his frost form was taxing on him, he just needs to regain energy, and FOOD! North had an entire set of yetis on Jack's diet for the length of his recovery. "But for now, old friend, is almost Easter, and you are far behind."

North and some yeti take time out, working in shifts to help Aster catch up while also having time to stay with Jack. He eats with Jack, sleeps beside Jack, assured by a continuously frustrated North that his magic won't hurt Jack. He watches them tube feed Jack, and he carefully combs Jack's ridiculously long hair.

He considers cutting it at least to Jack's feet, but finds the idea of Jack waking up to 300 years of hair too precious a joke to miss.

Mostly he needs it to give him hope that Jack WILL wake up. He plans to tease Jack for the next century because it's the only plans for the future he has. He needs Jack to wake up, needs him to get cranky about how long his hair is or how he doesn't have the muscles to so much as wiggle his toes or that he can't spread snow like THIS he's not "like you guys, I don't have minions I can pass stuff off to. I'm like Sandy, I need to BE there" and Bunnymund would demonstrate how "not there" Sandy really had to be by dumping a bag of sand in his face.

Fall comes early in this part of the world and Jack's belief base swells, North has made him his own tiny bedside globe, it's a snowglobe too, and when Bunny spins it all the lights start to drop tiny flakes of snow.

He knows Jack will love it, it's just the kind of corny thing Jack adores.

But his attention is more on the lights. On their strength. On the two important differences, the belief in Winter, and the belief in JACK.

These past months Jack has healed, the gentle attentions of Bunny and North have slowly renewed his body. They won’t know the extent of the damage until Jack wakes and moves, but the electric pulses to the muscles and the manipulations through massage have turned back the worst of the atrophy. Jack almost looks like he did before, like his frost image did. A little longer in the limbs, a little wider of jaw. The Frost image had been as Jack knew himself when he died, a young man still on the cusp of manhood. But much could happen over a winter, and the boy who had last seen his reflection in the windows of town as they made their last visit to market that fall was not the man who would till the fields in spring. 

Bunny could see the person Jack would be, before tragedy stole his future from him. He wondered what Jack saw, when he looked at himself. Did he have his mother’s eyes? His father’s nose? Did he see his baby sister in the stubborn just of his chin or hear his parent’s voice in his own when he was forced to put his foot down? 

He had never thought to ask before, mindful of old wounds, be family should not be forgotten. He would ask, when Jack woke. About his human life, his childhood, his family. And he would share his own.

He tugged an obscenely long strand of hair from his comb and set it with the other sheddings before continuing to tidy Jack’s mane after the day’s muscle manipulations had disturbed it. Musing that he could save the strands and weave a scarf for Jack from it, probably an entire cloak if Jack went and cut it all off. “Sleep any longer princess, an I’ll have’ta build ye yer own tower in the warren. Can’t keep dragging me arse all the way t’the Pole just for a chin wag yeah? Let North do you up pretty like, I’m sure he’s got a dress in your style. See if you laze about for months again after we give ye the royal treatment, serve you right making us worry.”

“Make it blue…” Bunny startles at the soft, raspy voice beside him. The comb clatters to the ground as he stares into Jack’s squinty, bleary blue eyes.

“Jack?” Bunny can barely breathe from the hope crowding into his chest.

“The dress…” Jack smiles, its trembling and lopsided, like his face muscles wouldn’t work quite right. He reaches out, tries to, the effort to lift his arm is exhausting. “Make sure it’s blue.”

“Sleeping beauties don’t get a say” Bunny scolds even as he leans down to take jack’s hand, unable to resist nuzzling into the palm.

“Sleeping Beauty,” Jack pouts. “Woke to a kiss.”

Bunny laughs, breathy and clogged with tears, but he could no more deny the request than he could refuse the next beat of his own heart.


End file.
